Posts Tagged ‘congestion’

With all the learning about toxins that has happened over the past two years, I’ve become reluctant to give my boys cold medicines when they become sick. I started taking the wait it out approach. However, the last couple times they’ve gotten sick it has gotten kind of bad – mucousy and congestion in their lungs. After a few days of it getting worse and worse, rather than better, I start to question my wisdom of not giving them medicine. And it only takes one or two nights of them being up most of the night, completely miserable (and then cranky all the following day ) for me to want to wave the white surrender flag and give in to giving them medication. But, with all the other work I’m doing through nutrition and everything else to keep toxins OUT of Jordan’s system, I just can’t stand to intentionally put some into him. So, what to do…Jordan was pretty sick, very congested – head AND chest. We have a D.O. for our family doctor who likes to use homeopathic things when she can, so I thought I’d call and see what she would suggest in place of an over-the-counter cough med. All I got was an earful (literal yelling – not at me, but at her nurse in regards to me) about how she would have to see him and evaluate him and what in the world was I thinking not bringing him in, but calling instead, blah, blah, blah… Well, in my mind, how was coming in going to help? I’m telling you, he’s congested, but it’s not THAT serious. I’m just looking for a natural expectorant (stuff that thins the mucous so it can be coughed out), something instead of toxic pharmaceuticals. If I brought him in, she is just going to say antibiotics won’t help and to go home, he’d be better in a few days. In reality, it would take him about 2 weeks to get better, but hey, who’s counting she’s not the one up rocking him every night, ALL night (can you tell we’ve already been down this road a few times). Which is fine, because even if she did think antibiotics would help, I wouldn’t give them to him anyway. We are already fighting the yeast war in his body and don’t need any antibiotics to make it worse and weaken him further, or add more toxicity as I mentioned earlier.

So, getting no help from the doctor once again, I turned to herbs. I had had my eye on a herb book for kids, The ABC Herbal by Steven Horne. I started perusing. Although much of the book contains “recipes” for making different concoctions for treating various things. I came across a section on infections. It talked about garlic being nature’s penicillin with “powerful infection-fighting qualities” and how it can be very beneficial for colds, respiratory problems, earaches and infections, fevers, other infections, etc and how it helps to expel phlegm. Well, phlegm expulsion is definitely what my boys needed and I had garlic on hand! Not knowing much (or anything) about herbs, I didn’t quite understand how I was suppose to use the garlic, but I did read that it could be used internally OR externally. So that night at bedtime, I got out the jar of minced garlic we keep in the fridge (we love to cook with garlic), put some in a small container and as we tucked them into bed, I smeared some garlic on their chests and thighs. The next morning, Josiah was basically better, just a slight lingering cough. Jordan rebounded after a few more nights of this treatment. Although it worked, I wouldn’t recommend doing it with this method. I’ll explain…

A few weeks later, the boys got sick again and it coincided with a trip to Jordan’s cranial sacral doctor. He recommended chopping up an organic clove of garlic and soaking it in olive oil = this makes garlic oil. Then take the garlic oil and spread it on the bottoms of their feet. I mentioned I had tried something very similar but had put it on their thighs, he quickly commented that if they did fine with it on their thighs, that it would be fine to put it directly on their chest then. Whew, that’s good since I already had. Again, it only took one night of this for Josiah to be over his cold and congestion. And about 3-4 nights for Jordan. This is way better than the two weeks it had traditionally taken AND it’s all natural and completely non-toxic!!

Additional Note: An experiment I found interesting…in his book, Steven Horne related an experiment a nurse did. Here is an excerpt. “She worked in a hospital growing bacterial cultures and proved to herself the powerful effect of garlic. She took a petri dish with a very powerful strain of bacteria and set a peeled clove of garlic in the center of the dish. Within two hours, every bacteria in the dish was dead. She told me ( Steven) that it took eight hours for the strongest antibiotic the hospital had to kill that same strain of bacteria when the antibiotic was sprayed over the whole plate. That shows you how penetrating the effects of garlic are.”